Finding a Solution: Often, many ass

Finding a Solution: Often, many assembly-line solutions are possible, even for such simple problems as Green Grass’s. The goal is to cluster the work elements into workstations so that (1) the number of workstations required is minimized, and (2) the precedence and cycle-time requirements are not violated. The idea is to assign work elements to workstations subject to the precedence requirements so that the work content for the station is equal (or nearly so, but less than) the cycle time for the line. In this way, the number of workstations will be minimized.Here we use the trial-and-error method to find a solution, although commercial software packages are also available. Most of these packages use different decision rules in picking which work element to assign next to a workstation being created. The ones used by POM for Windows are described in Table 5.3. The solutions can be examined for improvement, because there is no guarantee that they are optimal or even feasible. Some work elements cannot be assigned to the same station, some changes can be made to reduce the number of stations, or some shifts can provide better balance between stations.